Right now, Melchor Manibusan is focused on making everything go right in his life. He's making his bed when he wakes up, he's making sure his kids are well cared for, he tells his wife of his love for her and before he sleeps, he offers a little prayer of hope.

When you're planning your way to the big time, it pays off to make sure everything goes well.

From a personal standpoint, Manibusan has done everything he's wanted to already. He enjoyed a successful football career and an even more successful wrestling career, one he parlayed into a near-Olympic appearance for Guam.

From his brand name perspective, his labels -- Spike 22 and Double Deuce -- are as saturated on Guam as he could have hoped.

Now, he says, the big time is just around the corner.

Spike 22's cut-and-sew line -- that's fashion-speak for high-end wear -- is on the brink of greatness, he says. He's just secured entry into the Agenda, one of the most exclusive fashion conventions, where customers buy items by the hundreds -- even thousands of pieces.

"I've done the T-shirt thing over and over and truthfully, I'm not doing anything different. It's like music. How many more beats can you *$#% have? There are just so many beats out there, and today, it's all about sampling," says Manibusan. "Same thing with the clothing."

Manibusan pulled out a shirt to show off the details.

"These are just fonts. This is just an eagle. But it's the color; we went with this blue color. And we didn't highlight this, but it's there: 'Roll deep,'" he says. "So there are ways to take this thing, take that thing, take this thing and put it into one thing and all of a sudden, you're telling a new story. And that's how the art happens."

One of the ways he's expanding his horizons is his taking on a partner, local businessman and fight promoter Eli Monge, for his Double Deuce line. With Monge's background in fashion, Manibusan says he's got the right chemistry to help the label explode. Monge is a collector of fashion, putting it lightly, especially when it comes to shoes.

"On the record? I have all originals. My Jordans are originals. Everything I have from Larry Bird's Converse to the Jordans to the Patrick Ewings, all original, all untouched," he says. "My most expensive shoe is about $6,600 right now, the Air Force Crocodile. And I just got the Prada Air Max, that's hard to find. I hunt shoes.

"We went to Japan, and I knew where to get my Adidas shell-toes. Japan releases 2-3 a year ... So we got to Harajuku, I got my shoes and I was happy with them. They went straight to my closet."

As for hats? I never throw 'em away, I donate hats. I collect hats too. Maybe 100 hats, being conservative. And Shoyoroll gis.

Yet now as a local line is primed to be on the brink of greatness, Monge says fashion is exciting to him for a wealth of other reasons.

"What's exciting for me? I think for so many years, people gave me their clothes to wear, for my stamp of approval," he says. "And now I have my own brand with Melchor, so I'm excited to see where that goes."

Manibusan says that the industry that brought him to his current state is a thing of the past. Of course he is still a fan, but no longer a participant.

"My jiu-jitsu game, my MMA game, my fight game, my wrestling game -- I'm retired. I mostly come out here and do cross training, functional fitness for golf and for health, for lifestyle. I haven't been on the mat for a year," he says.

Manibusan says he's built his labels to be sustainable but for him to move on to the next level, he's got to stay focused.

"This is not something I can do part time. Right now it's just me. I take the design from you, I get the tech-pack ready, I send it out. And I've always been like that, because I want the final decision.

I still take my kids to school, I get them up every morning, I get them breakfast, I drop them off to school, I pick them up from school and take them here to do jiu-jitsu, or I take my son to golf. It's not much time, but I want to be able to do it for as long as I can. Even when they get to college, I want to be the one to take them to college and drop them off.

As for my wife, she's been so supportive of me for so long, she's at the point where she's saying 'Make it ... or break it.' This is where my income's coming from now, so I want to put a little more love into it."

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A cut above: Local brand set to take on big time

Right now, Melchor Manibusan is focused on making everything go right in his life. He's making his bed when he wakes up, he's making sure his kids are well cared for, he tells his wife of his love